Finding Life In Death
by doctorfetish
Summary: Sookie's cousin, Rebecca, is sent to BonTemps after her brother is found murdered in her bedroom. Can she convince the sheriff of Area 5 to help her prove her innocence or will she find that there is more to life than what others think? Sook/Bill, Eric/OC


Author's Note: OC. Don't like, don't read. I'm actually fairly proud of how this first part turned out, and I can't wait to write more. _**Please R&R**_:)

{*~Prologue~*}

Bon Temps was not too much unlike the country-side of Georgia that I was familiar with to make me cringe, but it was different enough that I knew without a doubt my life would change, then & there, forever.

My grandmother, Janice Adams, had told me tales about vampires when I was a young girl. She said they were real, and she even whispered to me on late summer evenings tiny snippets of the affairs my late aunt, Dorthy Mae, had carried on with them until her untimely death. She always made a point of it that Aunt Dorthy had died because she was screwing around with the unknown, but I felt strange about the whole thing. I wasn't sure what to believe, I just knew that for some reason I did, and I saw it as an exciting truth buried beneath the surface of lies that surronded my entire family. I used to lay next to my grandmother in her king-sized bed, listening to her snore as I relived the wild tales she had told me about my aunt before she dropped off to sleep. But then at some point in 2004 she began to drink, and the grandmother I knew and loved disappeared and was gone forever.

At first I stuck close to her side, not realizing what was wrong. I had seen my grandfather guzzle beer by the can-full, but I didn't know much about the world of alchohol and it wasn't until I accidentally discovered the bottle of Vodka in the clothes hamper that I began to figure it out. Even an eight year-old isn't that blind. None of the adults knew that I knew, and by the time next January rolled around, bringing my ninth birthday with it, I no longer went to hear about the "Famous" Aunt Dorthy Mae's crazy antics. I avoided the small, somewhat non-existent town of Jennings, Florida and moved on with my life.

Until, of course, the vampires came out of hiding.

It was plastered all over the news. In fact, there were so many different stations broadcasting interviews with real, live (well, technically _dead_) vampires that it was nearly impossible to say who had "come out of the coffin" first. I had always assumed that immortals were real, especially because of the stories my grandmother had shared with me, but none of that compared with having hard-core proof blazing across the TV like wildfire right into my face. Before long I began to search my home-town for vampires, and that was when I ran into my first one ever, and she was the one who showed me that forever isn't everything.

In the beginning of the "Vampire Revolution" my mother kept me behind lock and key as soon as the sun set in fear that her twelve year-old daughter would wind up as a warm-blooded meal for what she deemed a _monster_. Of course, seeing as my curiousity has always been a major problem, I'd sneak out through the back door when everyone else was alseep because my window was broke and couldn't be lifted. That was an especially hard task due to the fact my mom rarely went to bed before three in the morning, but somehow I managed, at least on Friday & Saturday nights. I'd roam the darkened streets with my adrenaline pumping and my heart jumping into my throat. There was always this uncanny combination of fear and hope that fueled these secret missions, and it wasn't until several tiresome weeks later that I gave up on trying to catch a vampire in the act.

One Saturday night in December, when the air was so cold your breath formed white tendrils of smoke and the forests around my parents' home were encased in fog, I had a fight with my older brother and ran outside in a heated, crying frenzy. I couldn't see past my tears, and I was too distraught to care where I went. I disappeared into the woods, unable to see past my pain long enough to be afraid of how dark it was. How dangerous.

There were countless stories circling the globe about vampires at that day and age. I was oblivious to them all, however, much too absorbed in my personal problems. It wasn't unti I was so deep in the neck of the woods where the fog was like a thick blanket of white that I began to notice the eerie presence that had settle itself down beside me. I could feel it moving, circling the outer edges of the clearing I had wandered into. Someone was there with me, and it wasn't a human. I had seen spirits before, and they frightened me terribly. But I didn't think of ghosts in the brief moment where anything was possible. I heard the sharp, wet snap of a twig in the distance and I gasped, drawing back a step. I looked upwards, from which the sound had came, and I stared in absolute terror as I saw that I could not see the sky. There was too much fog. The trees over head began to bend, startled awake by a sudden gust of wind, and I recoiled as branches began to crack. I fell to my knees, clutching my head in a protective manner. My life was over. I was sure of it. I thought of Dorthy Mae, slouched over in that cold, icy dumpster with her feet hanging out as her freshly painted toenails proudly gleamed a bright, exuberant pink. My grandmother's words came back to me, _"I warned her, just as I'm warning you now: "Let the Dead stay dead, and let the living stay alive."" _How could I have been so stupid...how could I have been so _careless_?

There were soft footsteps dragging their way across the leaves, and I squeezed my eyes shut tight, blocking out the images of those damn pink toenails the best I could. I swear that my heart stopped for a second, and when I knew it was over, that was my fate was a done-deal, I looked up and there she was, a marble statue of all that there had ever been and all that there would ever be.

Her red hair was dark like a glazed over piece of copper and it hung about her shoulder in a loose series of curls. She wore a faint, yellow, knee-length dress and she had black eyes that engulfed the pupils. She was chalky white, like a fine paste, and her lips had more color than the rest of her body. My attention zoomed in on her fingernails, and I was relieved to find that they were not painted.

"Do not be afraid," She said. Her mouth appeared closed, and I began to wonder if she was speaking to me telepathically. I had heard that some of them, if not most, could do so.

"I am not the enemy."

I started to speak, but she moved so swiftly it was all a blurr as she stood crouched before me, her cold fingers pressed firmly against my lips. "Do not speak," Her voice remained flat, and I noticed with minimal uncertainty that her mouth did indeed move, after all. "Stay," She ordered, and though I shook in fright I watched in awe as she vanished.

She came back a moment later, and she stretched a single finger outward, pointing behind me. "Go. Now." I turned to see what she had pointed at and when I looked back she gone. I walked in the direction she had indicated and soon found myself wrapped in my mother's arms, the blue light of a cop car flashing itself against the side of the house.

I never saw that vampire again, and I regret it to this day that I was not able to thank her. She very well saved my life, as a hunter found two men laying dead in the open that afternoon-both had murdered and raped women between the ages 7-15. Their necks were a clean break, and they had both been bled dry. It was all over the local news the following night.

It wasn't until four years later, on my sixteenth birthday, that trajedy struck. I had just gotten my permit, and I felt extremely sheepish about the fact that I should have went in to get my license, instead. I had goofed off about driving, and I regretted it with every fiber of my being. It sucks that some lessons can't be learned until it's too late. I had just placed the crummy paper print out of my face in my wallet when my mom's cellphone rang. I asked her who it was, but she held up a finger, giving me a stern look, and I turned on my heel and stomped away. I dug some change out of my pocket to put in the gumball machine (who says you ever have to grow up?) and I reached in the flap to retrieve my prize when my mother's scream echoed throughout the DMV. I dropped the gumball and it rolled against my Converse. I watched the Sheriff catch my mother as she fainted, her cellphone falling from her grasp. It shattered against the floor, and for a long time I stood there, unable to stare at anything but that purple gumball as it rested on the floor against my lifeless foot.

_Happy Birthday Me._

I knew they thought I did it. I hated my brother, but I loved him, too, despite all the terribleness he had brought my way. They'd found him dead in my bedroom, wrapped in a bloody towel. His body had been mutilated, and I would rather not think about how. My mother asked me if I'd killed him, I'd threatened to do so before, and even when I told her no I could tell from the way her jaw hinged that she didn't believe me. I was used to her not saying,_ 'I love you,' _so when she hugged me in the police station that night and said I was head to Bon Temps to stay with my cousin for the duration of the summer, I knew that was her way of saying I was never coming back home again, at least not on her watch.

I had to see my grandmother one last time. Even though she was a drunk and she favored the boys in our family above all else, I knew she was the only person who would understand me. I was grateful she appeared sober for once, and I spent a small hour in the comfort of her arms. It had been so long..._too _long. And now it was the end.

We talked about a lot of things in that short amount of time, and it was nice because she was oblivious to the fact that one of her grandsons was dead, which meant she could harbor no unreasonable hatred for me. At least not while I was around. We said our good-byes, and as I pulled away to follow my dad out to the car she seized me by the elbow and pulled me down so that her lips were mere centimeters from my ear. She was old but her grip was undeniably strong._ "I know you didn't kill him, Becca," _She whispered so that only I could hear. My eyes widened in surprise and I would have pulled away in shock had her next words not been so fierce. _"Bon Temps is crawling with vampires, so be careful. And whatever you choose to do with them, sweetheart, _don't _fall in love."_

If only I had had a choice.


End file.
